Dragon Mage

by ML Spencer

  The close walls of the abyss loomed above him thousands of feet, their features obscured by shadow. Beside him, the river of lava moved sluggishly, suffusing the air with a sulfurous miasma, flames erupting from its surface.

  Holding his side, Aram pushed himself to his feet. He had no idea where to go. All he knew was that he couldn’t stay there, for to do so would mean his death. The chamber was too hot, and he couldn’t keep the cooling net around him indefinitely. Eventually, he would run out of the essence to maintain it.

  His head throbbed. He took a step with legs that felt made of jelly and, for a moment, he thought he would pass out. Shooting his arms out, he caught his balance and, eventually, the ground stabilized beneath him.

  Squinting, he looked out across the dim bottom of the gorge, the surrounding air rippling with heat waves. There was nothing around him but molten rock and shadows. The lava ran its course, just like a river of water, and he couldn’t see what lay beyond a bend in the canyon wall ahead. He had no way of knowing which direction to go—upstream or down.

  He closed his eyes and reached out with his mind, seeking the creature he had encountered in his dreams. But the only thing his mind met was an overwhelming stillness, and he began to doubt that the void dragon was alive at all. Growing desperate, Aram glanced up and down the length of the river, trying to decide which way to go. The dragon had slipped down into the abyss from the terrace of Esmir’s eyrie, so he felt it had to be somewhere close by.

  There was only one thing to do. He would have to make a guess and put his trust in fate.

  Resolute, he made his way over uneven, black rock toward the first bend in the gorge, following the slow-moving river downstream. The air was sulfurous and scorching, and no matter how tightly he wound the cooling web about him, he couldn’t keep the sweltering heat at bay. His clothes were so wet they stuck to his skin, and his hair was dripping with sweat, as though he were a castaway disgorged by the ocean. He was nauseous and dizzy, but he willed his feet to keep going, following the bend in the gorge.

  The river of magma hissed and grumbled, belching plumes of fire. The path he followed narrowed, forcing him to be particularly careful of his footing, with lava on one side and the cavern wall on the other. The walls closed over him until he was stooping, picking his way through a dark tunnel lit only by the hellish glow of the molten rock. Within that tunnel, the temperature became unbearable. His gait became a stumbling shamble, and his vision grew dim. He tried to strengthen the shield around him, but it was saturated, unable to take much more heat.

  Just when he felt sure he was near his end, the tunnel opened into a wide cavern that was mercifully cooler. Gasping, Aram leaned forward with his hands on his knees, swaying from heat exhaustion. His vision swam in darkness for a few seconds, then faded slowly back. When he felt a little steadier, he drew himself upright.

  And froze.

  Across the chamber, his eyes fell upon the object of his search.

  The void dragon lay just ahead, curled on the shoreline beside the glowing river of magma. One glance confirmed his fear: the dragon was dead, its body petrified, just like the stone dragon he had seen in the upper eyrie.

  The sight of the dead dragon broke Aram’s spirit. All his effort, all the training, all the sacrifices his friends had made for him, had been for nothing. He had wasted his life on a whim.

  A crushing mountain of despair drove him to his knees.

  It was unbearable. He threw his head back and screamed in fury and self-hatred. He knelt there, staring straight up into the shadows of the chasm overhead, longing for just one last glimpse of the sky. But he couldn’t see it, not even a thin crack of daylight. He was too far down. Too deep. There would be no rescue, for no one above could ever reach him.

  The overwhelming grief he felt had nothing to do with his own impending death. Instead, he grieved for the friends he would leave behind. That, and the loss of the dragon that should have been his. He looked again at the sad form of the void dragon, its body hardened to granite, the sight filling him with excruciating sorrow.

  If he was to die, then he wanted to die alongside his dragon.

  With the last of his strength, Aram crawled on his hands and knees along the shore of the molten river, coughing and choking. The caustic air clawed tears from his eyes and corroded his airways. He crawled with his eyes squeezed shut until his hands felt the smooth surface of granite stone. Then he collapsed on the searing ground at his dragon’s side.

  With the last of his waning strength, Aram kissed his fingers and laid a hand on the void dragon’s petrified hide.

  Beneath his hand, the stone rippled.

  Aram heaved a sob. Though nearly stone, there was enough left of his dragon to respond to his touch. He wept openly at the unfairness of it.

  “Forgive me,” he whispered.

  He tried to take comfort in the fact that at least they would die together. But even that thought did not quell the raging guilt within him. If he had just passed his Trials sooner, he could have saved them both.

  But now it was too late.

  Unless…

  Aram stiffened, his eyes going wide. The void dragon had slipped into the abyss because he had been drained of essence. Aram was full of essence, brimming with it. And none of that essence would do him any good after he was dead.

  He had nothing to lose by giving it all away.

  Placing both hands on the creature’s stony body, he opened himself to the dragon, just as he had that day in the forest, all those years ago, and gave it what it needed.

  The pain was excruciating, but he didn’t scream. It was a kind of agony he was used to, the pain of extraction he had endured every day in the essence cellars. Then, the extraction had been forced upon him, but now he gave it freely, which somehow made a difference. So, instead of screaming, he merely closed his eyes and surrendered to the pain.

  As he slipped away, Aram smiled faintly, for he could feel the stone beneath his hands start to soften.

  Chapter Eighty-One

  For heartbeats, Markus stood next to Siroth on the terrace, peering down into the gaping abyss. His gaze roved over the long fissure, searching for any sign of movement from below. But there was nothing. All the dragons that had gone down after Aram had returned. He was about to turn away when a flash of movement caught his attention.

  Far below, a small golden dragon emerged from the crack in the earth. Markus’s head filled with a dizzying relief that quickly died.

  Zandril was riderless.

  Oh, gods, no.…

  His gaze followed the small dragon as she rose from the chasm, pumping her wings furiously to gain height. He watched through blurry vision as she flew directly toward them and landed on the terrace next to Siroth, who bent his head and touched his nose to hers. Feeling weak and disoriented, Markus just stood there, staring off into the distance, his body numb.

  Calise rushed to Zandril’s side, throwing her arms around her dragon’s neck, her shoulders heaving with sobs. Everyone on the terrace gathered around them, men and women of the fighting Wing, faces pale and grave. They stood with heads bowed, gazes lowered, looking far more shocked than grieved.

  Markus couldn’t do anything but stare at Zandril, stunned. He stood locked in a mixture of confusion and despair so powerful that he couldn’t even summon tears. Looking across the eyrie, he saw that Vandra’s face had gone red, not in grief, but in fury. Markus understood. Aram had died a selfish death. Through rash stupidity, he had taken from these people what they needed most: their Champion.

  On legs that were made of clay, he walked over to Calise and drew her into a hug. She cried against him for minutes before looking up, staring plaintively into his eyes. “He let go. He didn’t fall. He let go.”

  Finally the tears came, for at last, Markus understood.

  Aram had taken his own life on purpose.

  He saw Vandra’s eyes on him, full of anger and dismay, but they also held sympathy. Markus turned away and strode
heavily for the stairs as a tidal wave of despair broke over him. Vision blurred, he jogged up the steps to Esmir’s eyrie and shoved the door open violently. Startled, Esmir shot out of his seat, face shocked and questioning. Markus closed the door more softly than he’d opened it.

  “Aram’s gone,” he said, his voice rough with emotion.

  Esmir stared at him sideways a long moment. “Gone?”

  Markus nodded. “He killed himself. Jumped into the gorge.”

  The old man’s gaze slowly lowered. For a moment, he stood teetering as though drunk. Then his knees gave out, and he slumped back into his chair like a marionette whose strings had been cut.

  Markus crossed the room in a daze and slipped through the partition, leaving Esmir to his grief. His own feelings were strangling him hard enough; he could barely breathe. He strode out onto the terrace and walked to the edge. There, he fell to his knees and wept.

  He stayed there on the terrace the remainder of the day and well into the night, staring out across the gaping silence of the chasm. Siroth landed and settled next to him, and he was grateful for his dragon’s presence, for Siroth’s steadying personality helped keep the despair at bay. Sometime after sunset, Esmir joined them, hobbling out and sitting down at his side. For hours, the two of them just sat there in silence, two failed Wardens bereft of the Champions whose lives they had pledged to protect.

  “What happened?” Markus asked at last. “Did he just break?”

  Esmir bowed his head, shaking it sadly. “More likely, he was already broken. Perhaps we were too quick to assume Aram passed his Trials.”

  To Markus, that made sense. It was comforting, in a way, for it meant that it wasn’t Aram’s fault. Thinking of it that way cooled his anger, and let grief take its place. But guilt came along with grief like an inevitable companion. He couldn’t shake the cruel feeling that it wasn’t Aram who had failed … but rather it was he who had failed Aram.

  “I didn’t keep my oath,” he murmured. “I didn’t save him from himself.”

  Reaching up, Esmir patted Markus’s shoulder in a gesture of sympathy. Then he pushed himself up and limped back into his eyrie.

  Markus awoke to the brilliant light of morning warming the rock beneath them. Siroth lay stretched out at his side, the dragon’s long neck curled around him protectively. Markus sat up and rubbed the sleep from his eyes. His back ached from spending the night on the hard stone, and his eyes felt grainy, like he’d scrubbed sand into them. He supposed he wasn’t going to get any more sleep, though he needed it. He rose reluctantly with a murmured word of thanks to Siroth for his company. Then he paused, not sure what he should be doing. For a moment, he just stood stunned, his gaze wandering the empty air in front of him.

  For the first time in his life, he had awakened without a sense of purpose.

  When he entered the eyrie, he noticed that Esmir was gone, though the old man had left a pot of something simmering over the fire. Markus wrapped his hand in a towel and took the kettle off the flames, setting it down on the floor. He ladled himself a bowl of watery porridge, but only managed to get down a third of it before his stomach rebelled. Pouring the remainder back into the kettle, he decided to dress and go downstairs, hoping that Vandra could put him to work—anything to get his mind off Aram.

  But when he reached for his clothes, his hand stopped short of grasping them.

  They were the clothes of a Warden. The sight of the garments made him sad, but also disgusted. Tossing the uniform aside, he found some of his old garments and pulled them on.

  The sound of rushing wings made him flinch.

  Markus whirled toward the mouth of the cavern just as a violent gust of wind blew in from the outside, fanning his hair and crackling his tunic, billowing Siroth’s wings. He raced toward the cave mouth just in time to see an enormous red dragon sweep across the sky, occluding the sun. Its great wings were easily twice the span of Siroth’s, black on the leading edges, transitioning to crimson. The dragon banked sharply and, with graceful precision, alighted on the terrace.

  Aram’s body slipped limply from its back.

  With a gasp, Markus sprinted forward, his mind spinning with a heart-stopping combination of joy and disbelief, for not only was Aram alive, but he had achieved the impossible—he had returned a Greater Dragon to the world.

  But the red dragon reacted violently to his motion, mantling its wings protectively over Aram and baring teeth as big and sharp as swords. An intense and irrational hatred filled its eyes. It opened its mouth wider until he could see down its gullet, to the heated core within. For one, terrifying second, he thought the monster was going to sear him with dragonfire.

  “No!” a commanding voice rang through the eyrie.

  The enormous dragon flinched, closing its mouth with a snap. Its viper-like head pivoted, and it issued a sharp hiss. Markus turned to find Esmir standing frozen in the eyrie’s entrance, staring at the massive dragon in open-mouthed shock. For several long moments, he stood rigid and didn’t move, and neither did the dragon. Their gazes locked, each held fast by the other, and Markus got the strong sense that he stood between two old enemies reunited in hatred.

  “Agaroth,” Esmir whispered. Then he slumped, crumpling in on himself, and wept openly into his hands as the dragon glared at him hatefully.

  Sensing a break in the tension, Markus inched forward, hands raised, hoping the dragon would allow his approach. Aram lay unconscious beneath it, the skin of his face raw and blistered. Sensing his motion, the great head recoiled like a snake preparing to strike.

  “We’re his friends,” Markus said, taking a mincing step closer, his hands still raised. “He needs help. Please, let us take care of him.”

  In response, the dragon gave a threatening growl produced low in its throat.

  Markus pointed at Aram. “I’m his Warden. He needs help.”

  The dragon’s gaze slipped from Markus to Esmir, its eyes filled with rancorous distrust. It was only then that Markus made the connection.

  He drew in a gasp. “Agaroth…” he whispered. Turning to Esmir, he asked, “Is this Torian’s dragon?”

  “Yes.” Esmir wiped his eyes on his shirtsleeve. “And he blames me for Daymar’s death, as he rightfully should.”

  Markus looked back and forth between the old, broken man and the vengeful dragon, at last understanding the dynamic that crackled like lightning between them.

  “Don’t blame him!” he said to the dragon. “It wasn’t his fault. If it wasn’t for Esmir, Aram would be dead too!”

  Agaroth glared at him with eyes that seemed to burn right through him. To Markus, it felt like he was locked in a battle of wills with a demon. After what seemed like eternity, the dragon let down its guard somewhat, just enough for Markus to reach out to it with his mind with an offer of truce.

  Warily, he opened himself to the dragon and showed it a quick succession of mental images that tumbled out of him like a gush of water. Most were memories of the experiences he had shared with Aram, starting with the day he had saved his friend from a beating all those years ago. The dragon got to see Aram through Markus’s eyes, and at last gained some measure of understanding. Slowly, the expression of hatred eased on its harsh, reptilian face. Agaroth’s wings relaxed, and the dragon took a step back.

  Markus hastened forward, dropping to Aram’s side. The skin of his face was raw, as though scorched by steam. His clothing was singed, and he stunk of brimstone. Esmir dropped down next to him, laying a hand on Aram’s brow.

  “He needs essence,” Esmir said, his voice trembling. “Fetch me the Wellspring water!”

  Markus rose immediately and ran to retrieve the crystalline decanter Esmir always kept on his table. Returning with the water, he lifted Aram and drizzled the water down his throat while Esmir went to fetch a healer.

  The water made an immediate impact on Aram’s coloring. The warmth of his brown blood returned to his cheeks, and his breathing slowed and stabilized. Above them, Agaroth uttered a
n approving rumble and backed away, looking much more at ease.

  Little by little, Markus got half the container of water into Aram before the healer arrived, an older woman who came stumbling into the eyrie and nearly collapsed at the sight of a Greater Dragon looming above her patient. Together, they got Aram settled into bed, his scalded skin glistening with salve.

  Markus returned to the terrace, where Siroth and Agaroth seemed to be getting acquainted. Agaroth was easily double Siroth’s size, and yet seemed to accept him as an equal. For his part, Siroth regarded the red dragon with a mixture of excitement and reverence, displaying no sign of being territorial about sharing his eyrie.

  Esmir yielded his alcove to Agaroth, the space he had once shared with Daymar Torian. Together, he and Markus moved Aram’s pallet to the center of the floor and laid him down upon it. Agaroth curled his great, sinuous body around Aram and shared the warmth of his inner fire with him, fiercely protective of the powerful young man who had not only saved his life but had also redeemed his spirit from the void.

  Chapter Eighty-Two

  When Aram awoke, there was a chill to the air, a welcome relief from the brutal heat of the abyss. His body ached with scalding pain that felt like someone had dunked him in a pot of boiling water, and when he lifted his arm, he saw that his skin was red and blistered. His throat was raw, and every breath he drew made his lungs burn. With a groan, he rolled over and opened his eyes.

  And flinched with a gasp.

  A great golden eye was watching him.

  Aram sat bolt upright, scrambling backward. An enormous dragon loomed over him, peering down at him with a look of wary curiosity. Aram’s thoughts clotted like spilled blood, his mind struggling to understand the miracle of the creature standing before him. It was the void dragon, though it was no longer milky-white, but the deepest shade of crimson, darkening to black at the extremities. It was one of the Greaters, easily twice the size of even Vandra’s Ragath, with twin spiraling horns swept back from its viper-shaped head. The dragon’s scarred wings were mostly black, and though they were folded, Aram could imagine its magnificent wingspan.